European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology

ISSN: 1359-432X (Print) 1464-0643 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pewo20

A focus on commitment: the roles of

transformational and transactional leadership and
self-regulatory focus in fostering organizational
and safety commitment

Marianna Delegach, Ronit Kark, Tal Katz-Navon & Dina Van Dijk

To cite this article: Marianna Delegach, Ronit Kark, Tal Katz-Navon & Dina Van Dijk (2017):
A focus on commitment: the roles of transformational and transactional leadership and self-
regulatory focus in fostering organizational and safety commitment, European Journal of Work and
Organizational Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/1359432X.2017.1345884

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2017.1345884

Published online: 30 Jun 2017.

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Download by: [Australian Catholic University] Date: 01 July 2017, At: 14:34
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2017.1345884

A focus on commitment: the roles of transformational and transactional leadership

and self-regulatory focus in fostering organizational and safety commitment
Marianna Delegacha, Ronit Karkb, Tal Katz-Navonc and Dina Van Dijkd
a
The Human Resource Management Department, Sapir Academic College, D.N. Hof Ashkelon, Israel; bDepartment of Psychology, Bar-Ilan
University, Ramat Gan, Israel; cArison School of Business, The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel; dDepartment of Health Systems
Management, Faculty of Health Sciences & School of Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The concept of employees’ commitment is one of the most challenging concepts in the management, Received 5 May 2016
organizational behaviour and human resource management literatures and research. The current study Accepted 19 June 2017
focuses on the construct of commitment as an emotional attitude, and expands the concept of general KEYWORDS
organizational commitment to a new more specific form of commitment, commitment to safety. Transformational leadership;
Furthermore, commitment theorists commonly identify leadership as an important contributing factor transactional leadership;
to the development of organizational commitment. We aim to explain an underlying motivational self-regulatory focus;
mechanism, self-regulatory foci, through which leadership styles foster followers’ commitment. Results affective commitment;
of three studies that used different methods (field and experimental), within different samples, demon- continuance commitment
strated that transformational leadership was positively associated with followers’ promotion focus,
which in turn was positively associated with both followers’ general and affective commitment to
safety. Prevention focus mediated the positive relationship between a transactional active leadership
style and both followers’ general and continuance commitment to safety. The implications of the
findings for theory and practice are further discussed.

The concept of organizational commitment has captured
increasing attention over the last three decades (e.g., Choi,
Oh, & Colbert, 2015). Organizational commitment is a “funda-
mental concept for understanding human behavior” (Klein,
Meyer, & Becker, 2009, p. 3) and it represents “the relative
strength of an individual’s identification with and involve-
ment in a particular organization” (Mowday, Porter, & Steers,
1982, p. 27). Furthermore, organizational commitment is
described as closely related “attachment” between employ-
ees and their organization (Riketta & Van Dick, 2005), with a
strong emotional component (Meyer & Allen, 1997).
Organizational commitment, and specifically its emotional
aspect, can cause individuals to behave in ways that do not
always fit their own self-interest (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001),
and to persist in the course of actions in the face of conflict-
ing forces (Meyer, Becker, & Vandenberghe, 2004). Thus,
commitment has a crucial impact on organizational out-
comes, such as employees’ performance, turnover and job
satisfaction (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005; Meyer,
Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002).
Commitment in the organizational context can be directed
towards various different objects and targets (Meyer &
Herscovitch, 2001). Thus, it is worthwhile to acknowledge
and develop the conceptualization of target-specific forms of
commitment. Accordingly, employees may develop commit-
ment to targets such as their occupation (e.g., Irving, Coleman,
& Cooper, 1997), supervisor (e.g., Meyer, Morin, &
Vandenberghe, 2015), service provider (e.g., Bansal, Irving, &
Taylor, 2004), organizational change (e.g., Herscovitch &
Meyer, 2002) and workgroup (e.g., Meyer et al., 2015). In the
current study, we move forward to introduce a new specific
form of commitment, commitment to safety.
Scholars and practitioners have noted the importance of
exploring and further understanding the ways in which man-
agers are able to maintain and enhance different types of their
employees’ commitment (Avolio, Zhu, Koh, & Bhatia, 2004).
Leadership has been found to be a key factor in the develop-
ment of employee commitment to organizations (e.g., Hughes
& Avey, 2009; Joo, Jun Yoon, & Jeung, 2012; Korek, Felfe, &
Zaepernick-Rothe, 2010). Specifically, different types of leader-
ship behaviours foster different types of commitment to the
organization: transformational leaders, who present an attrac-
tive vision of the future, have an idealized influence, and
stimulate followers to question the status quo, increase their
followers’ affective commitment to the organization (e.g.,
Bučiūnienė & Škudienė, 2008; Clinebell, Škudienė, Trijonyte, &
Reardon, 2013). On the other hand, transactional leaders, who
set clear objectives, monitor achievements, impose sanctions
for failure to obtain standards and engage employees in social
and economic exchanges processes (Antonakis & House,
2014), increase their followers’ continuance organizational
commitment (e.g., Brown & Dodd, 1999; Bučiūnienė &
Škudienė, 2008; Clinebell et al., 2013).
However, these findings call for a deeper and more
nuanced understanding of the underlying psychological
mechanisms through which leadership styles influence

CONTACT Marianna Delegach serval3@bezeqint.net

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 M. DELEGACH ET AL.
employees’ commitment (e.g., Bučiūnienė & Škudienė, 2008;
Clinebell et al., 2013; Connell, Ferres, & Travaglione, 2003;
Meyer et al., 2002; Mohamad, 2012). Accordingly, Kark, Katz-
Navon and Delegach (2015) suggested a model that drew on a
major psychological motivational theory, the self-regulatory
focus (SRF) theory (Higgins, 1997). They demonstrated that
managers, who attempt to motivate their followers, can either
“play to win” by fostering the component of self-promotion
among followers or “play not to lose” by tapping into the
prevention aspect of followers’ self-regulation (e.g.,
Halvorson & Higgins, 2013). Yet, Kark et al. (2015) focused
only on specific types of behaviours and did not consider
the emotional aspects of employees’ attachment to the orga-
nization or other organizational targets. They also overlooked
the underlying mechanisms of different types of emotional
attachment to the organization, which can have a broader
impact on a wide variety of employees’ organizational beha-
viours. Specifically, the current study expands the work of Kark
et al. (2015), that demonstrated the role of regulatory focus in
the leadership–followers’ (safety) behaviour relationships, to
followers’ emotional attachment, i.e., the general attitudes of
commitment to the organization and commitment to safety.
Hence, the current study has three main theoretical con-
tributions: first, this is the first study that explores how differ-
ent self-regulatory foci relate to different types of
commitment. Previous studies focused on the role of SRF in
mediating specific behaviours such as deviant and creative
behaviours (Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, Chonko, & Roberts,
2008), or specific safety behaviours, such as initiative and
conformative safety behaviours (Kark et al., 2015), but not on
the wider emotional and motivational aspect of commitment
to the organization. Thus, this study is focused not merely on
predicting a specific behaviour of employees, but rather on
the wider affective aspect of how leadership and SRF are
associated with employees’ attachment to the organization.
Understanding the emotional bond to the organization is a
novel theoretical contribution beyond earlier literature.
Second, the commitment literature had paid only little
theoretical attention to the inner dynamics and processes of
individual identity and self-motivation as antecedents of com-
mitment. Understanding the motivational-based mechanism
through which different types of commitment are elicited is
important (Johnson, Chang, & Yang, 2010). By integrating
theories of commitment, that often involves psychological
attachment to organizational target and of employees’ moti-
vation, we gain a better understanding of the concept of
commitment and its antecedents.
Third, since organizations are also concerned with specific
types of outcomes that may be central to their task (e.g.,
creativity, safety and quality), there is a need to go beyond
general commitment to the organization and to focus on
more specific organizational goals. Thus, introducing a new
concept of “commitment to safety”, which goes beyond the
general concept of Meyer and Allen (1997), extends the notion
of organizational commitment to a specific important aspect
in today’s organizations, employees’ safety. Different types of
commitment may be elicited in somewhat different ways and
may have varied personal and organizational outcomes. Thus,
exploring commitment to safety has a unique theoretical
contribution to furthering our understanding of the commit-
ment concept.
In sum, the study aims to demonstrate that the mechanism
of regulatory focus may help understand how different leader-
ship styles differentially influence the distinct components of
followers’ attachment to the organization, i.e., their commit-
ment. By expanding the proposed model from a general
“commitment to the organization” to a new construct of
“commitment to safety”, we aim to enhance the validity of
both our model and the construct of commitment, and to
offer an expanded, more nuanced, understanding of specific
modes of commitment.
General commitment, commitment to safety and
leadership styles
The three-component model of organizational commitment
distinguishes between three different modes of employees’
attachment to the organization (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Meyer,
Allen, & Smith, 1993): affective commitment, which refers to
an employee’s emotional attachment to, or identification with,
and involvement in the organization. Continuance commit-
ment, which refers to a cost-based form of attachment, rooted
in lack of alternative options, or cost of personal sacrifices
associated with discontinuing membership within the organi-
zation (Allen & Meyer, 1997). Finally, normative commitment
refers to the individual’s bond with the organization due to
social force, or alluding to reciprocity for a benefit that binds a
person to the organization (Meyer et al., 2002). In this study,
we focus on affective commitment and continuance commit-
ment because they are most distinguishable from each other
and have distinct influences on work behaviours, representing
a strong emotional bond and inner attachment to the organi-
zation, or an attachment that is rather external and weaker,
based on not having alternative options (Bergman, 2006;
Luchak & Gellatly, 2007; Meyer et al., 2002).1
Drawing on Meyer & Allen’s (1997) model, we propose a
novel concept of commitment to safety: the high human and
financial costs of workplace accidents, injuries and fatalities
(International Labour Organization, 2014) have given much
impetus to research workplace safety (e.g., Barling, Loughlin,
& Kelloway, 2002; Beus, Dhanani, & McCord, 2015; Christian,
Bradley, Wallace, & Burke, 2009; Katz-Navon, Naveh, & Stern,
2005). Employees’ safety refers to the condition of being
protected from danger, risk or injury (International Labour
Organization, 2014). Specifically, affective commitment to
safety refers to a desire to support and invest in workplace
safety. It reflects personal involvement with, and attachment
to the goals and values of safety. For example, an employee
who is affectively committed to safety would attempt to meet
safety goals and expectations and would be involved in main-
taining safety in the workplace based on a genuine desire to
do so.
Continuance commitment to safety is based on a recogni-
tion that there are costs associated with violation of safety
procedures and instructions. It reflects the individual’s recog-
nition of the costs associated with discounting safety. For
example, an employee who is continuously committed to
safety would be inclined to comply with safety rules and
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
regulations because of previous investments in safety (e.g.,
time and/or efforts), or because there is an external demand
that the employee feels required to obey from a cost-based
point of view. Employees with high continuance commitment
to safety behave safely not because they perceive safety as an
important organizational goal, but rather they put effort into
safety to avoid costs (Luria & Rafaeli, 2008). They may feel that
their choice to preserve safety is determined by external rules
or supervision, and therefore, may keep just the minimum
safety requirements (Luchak & Gellatly, 2007).2
A specific attitude can predict a specific behaviour more
accurately than a general attitude (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977).
This is also in line with social categorization theory, which
suggests that commitment to a specific group leads to an
increase in behaviours that foster these specific group goals
(Belschak & Den Hartog, 2010). Commitment to a specific
target implies that individuals value that target’s advance-
ment, and individuals are motivated to engage in behaviours
that they perceive to be instrumental for protecting and pro-
moting that specific target they value (Van Eerde & Thierry,
1996; Vroom, 1964). Thus, we believe that the commitment to
safety concept offers a robust and more theoretically
grounded alternative to explore the relationship between
commitment, safety and its antecedents and consequences,
in comparison to a general form of commitment.
Leaders’ behaviours and specifically transformational and
transactional behaviours influence followers’ commitment.
The Full Range of Leadership model (Bass & Avolio, 1994)
makes a fundamental distinction between transformational
and transactional leadership styles. Transformational leader-
ship transforms the values and priorities of followers,
enhances consciousness of goals and encourages followers
to perform beyond their expectations to achieve organiza-
tional goals (e.g., Den Hartog, Van Muijen, & Koopman, 1997;
Jung & Avolio, 1999; Yukl, 2002). Transformational leadership
achieves these by using four main behavioural dimensions,
between which high inter-correlations have been noted (van
Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013): idealized influence, which is the
degree to which the leader is a role model for followers and
behaves in admirable ways that cause followers to identify
with the leader and adopt the leader’s values and norms;
inspirational motivation, which is the degree to which the
leader envisions a desirable future and articulates it in
appealing and inspiring ways; intellectual stimulation, which
is the degree to which the leader is able to question the
status quo, take risks and encourage followers to become
more innovative and creative; and individualized considera-
tion, which is the degree to which the leader attends to the
developmental needs of followers, treats every follower as
having distinct characteristics, abilities and desires and dele-
gates assignments as opportunities for growth (Bass, 1999;
Judge & Piccolo, 2004).
In contrast, transactional leadership exchanges rewards for
followers’ compliance (Bass & Avolio, 1994). Transactional lea-
dership achieves this by using three behavioural dimensions:
contingent reward, which refers to the degree to which the
leader clarifies to followers what they must do in order to be
rewarded for their efforts; management by exception active
(MBEA), which represents the degree to which the leader
3
monitors the follower’s performance and takes corrective
actions; management by exception passive (MBEP), which is
the degree to which the leader waits for problems to arise
before she/he takes punitive actions (Bass & Avolio, 1994;
Judge & Piccolo, 2004).
In the current paper, and in line with theory and findings of
prior studies, we suggest that transformational leadership
elicits affective commitment to the organization (e.g.,
Bučiūnienė & Škudienė, 2008; Clinebell et al., 2013). This refers
to all the different sub-components of transformational lea-
dership, through an individual bond (individualized considera-
tion), through the inspiration of the leader that will highlight
the organizational values and goals and will enhance commit-
ment (inspirational motivation) via the modelling of the com-
mitment of the leader (idealized influence), and by the leader
highlighting novel ways to understand work, and its meaning
(intellectual stimulation). Transactional leadership enhances
continuance commitment (e.g., Brown & Dodd, 1999;
Bučiūnienė & Škudienė, 2008; Clinebell et al., 2013; Kark &
van Dijk, 2007). This mainly relates to the components of
management by exception active and passive. A management
by exception active leader shows active monitoring beha-
viours that look out for employees’ mistakes and mishaps
and can act in a punishing manner. A management by excep-
tion passive leader is less active and relates to employees only
when things go wrong, thus forming a more external-oriented
attachment, in which followers do not feel a strong emotional
bond to the organization.3
Furthermore, focusing on the novel construct of commit-
ment to safety, we propose that in the context of safety,
transformational leaders enhance affective commitment to
safety and transactional leaders enhance continuance commit-
ment to safety. Specifically, when leaders display transforma-
tional behaviours, they focus on promoting meaningful issues
within the organization, including safety. Transformational
leaders who demonstrate real concern for followers’ safety
(Barling et al., 2002) show a value-driven aspirational orienta-
tion towards safety and allow employees to use their discre-
tion and take an active part in shaping a safe work
environment (Kark et al., 2015), can contribute to followers’
understanding that safety is an issue of high importance and
to followers’ identification with related values and goals, thus
enhancing affective commitment to safety. Transactional lea-
ders who highlight safety, make followers respond to this
demand by providing positive or negative rewards. When
transactional or monitoring leaders focus on safety issues,
their employees conform to their requirements since they
are afraid of punishment (Zohar, 2002) and are likely to pay
a price for not following the rules and regulations that apply
to safety. Thus, we propose that transactional/monitoring lea-
dership will elicit followers’ continuance commitment to
safety, which is a cost-induced commitment, based on
employees’ recognition of the costs associated with discount-
ing safety.
Leadership styles and self-regulatory foci
There is a growing literature on how leaders influence fol-
lowers’ feelings, attitudes and behaviours through effecting
4 M. DELEGACH ET AL.
followers’ self-identity (e.g., Epitropaki, Kark, Mainemelis, &
Lord, 2017; Kark et al., 2015). This idea is based on the premise
that an individual’s self is highly dynamic and multifaceted
(Lord & Brown, 2004), enabling people to adapt different
facets and levels of identity at a given point in time, according
to the situational factors (e.g., Sluss & Ashforth, 2007). A leader
in the workplace is one of the most important situational
factors that “structure the reality” of followers. Thus, the leader
has a deep influence on followers’ self-perception (Eilat-
Shamir, Kark, & Popper, 2016; van Knippenberg, van
Knippenberg, De Cremer, & Hogg, 2004) and activates various
aspects of followers’ self-identities (e.g., Kark & Shamir, 2002),
among them the activation of different aspects of the SRF.
Regulatory-focus theory (Higgins, 1997, 1998) suggests that
people have two different fundamental orientations – promo-
tion and prevention foci – that influence how they interpret
information from the environment and regulate their emo-
tions and behaviours (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins,
1997). When an individual is promotion-focused, she/he is
sensitive to gains and non-gains, and thus, regulates the
achievement of rewards and focuses on growth, hopes, aspira-
tions and development. Employees high on promotion focus
use approach and eagerness as goal-attainment strategies, are
more creative and innovative, are more willing to take risks,
are more sensitive to positive feedback (Kark & van Dijk, 2007,
2008; van Dijk & Kluger, 2011) and experience emotions ran-
ging from pleasure or cheerfulness to dejection (Brockner &
Higgins, 2001). Prevention-focused employees are sensitive to
losses and non-losses, and thus, regulate the avoidance of
punishments and focus on security, responsibilities, obliga-
tions and duties. Employees high on prevention focus use
avoidance and vigilance as goal-attainment strategies, work
more accurately and safely (Kark et al., 2015), are more sensi-
tive to negative feedback (van Dijk & Kluger, 2011) and experi-
ence emotions varying from anxiety and agitation to
tranquility or calmness (e.g., Brockner & Higgins, 2001;
Friedman & Förster, 2001).
Regulatory focus can emerge as both a chronic, individual
disposition that is stable across situations (Brockner & Higgins,
2001), and as a situational, context-induced motivational
orientation. Momentary situations can trigger a shift in regu-
latory focus in a variety of ways (Friedman & Förster, 2001).
The situation characteristics are capable of inducing promo-
tion and prevention foci by framing instructions or feedback in
gain/loss perspective or by providing a perspective of growth/
responsibility. Thus, workplace-related parameters, such as the
manager leadership style, can shape individuals’ regulatory
foci (Dewett & Denisi, 2007). Indeed, as suggested by Kark
and van Dijk (2007) and by Kark et al. (2015), one of the
mechanisms through which transformational and transac-
tional/monitoring leaders exert their influence on followers’
attitudes and outcomes is by eliciting followers’ promotion
and prevention foci. Specifically, transformational leaders
focus on followers’ growth and development (Bass, 1999),
paint an ideal picture of the future (Judge & Piccolo, 2004),
emphasize the emotional attachment of followers to the orga-
nization (Koh, Steers, & Terborg, 1995). They encourage fol-
lowers to examine problems from new perspectives (Groves &
LaRocca, 2012; Yukl, 2002), to challenge the status quo and be
creative and innovative. Transformational leaders push fol-
lowers to seek novel approaches to problems and challenges,
inspire loyalty and creative thinking (Bass & Avolio, 1994),
highlight intrinsic rewards and motivation and encourage a
balance between organizational and employee personal goals
so that employees perceive organizational goals as concor-
dant with their own (Bono & Judge, 2003). This implies that
the transformational leader’s rhetoric and behaviours invoke
the “ideal selves” of followers, which is likely to focus followers
on promotion (Gorman et al., 2012; Kark et al., 2015; Kark &
van Dijk, 2007).
In contrast, transactional leadership – either active or pas-
sive – focuses mainly on followers’ cognitions (Bass & Avolio,
1994; Jung & Avolio, 1999), emphasizes short-term, basic
needs of subordinates (Koh et al., 1995), monetary rewards
associated with performance of predefined tasks and compli-
ance with planned goals and standards (Bass & Avolio, 1994);
stressing what followers stand to lose if they do not achieve
these goals. Transactional leaders involve subordinates in
exchange processes (Bass, 1999) in an attempt to satisfy fol-
lowers’ immediate needs. The transactional leader encourages
followers to perform tasks in a “proper way”, sets standards
and monitors achievements and failures, does not direct the
followers to find new solutions for challenges, instead
encourages them to be dependent on the leader’s decisions.
Thus, leaders who display a transactional style by monitoring
followers’ behaviours and focusing them on their responsibil-
ities and duties, turn to subordinates’ “ought selves”, and may
elicit followers’ prevention focus (Gorman et al., 2012; Kark
et al., 2015; Kark & van Dijk, 2007).
SRF and employee commitment
Regulatory focus is a broad theory that can explain the moti-
vational sources of the different types of commitment to work
(Markovits, Ullrich, Van Dick, & Davis, 2008). One potential
explanation for the link between regulatory focus and the
different types of commitment can be attributed to the differ-
ent sensitivity of the two regulatory foci to gains and losses
and the related emotion tendencies that is associated with
this sensitivity. Since commitment is an attitude that has a
vital emotional component, we suggest that the effect of
regulatory focus on employees’ feelings and emotions will
be reflected in employees’ type of commitment. Specifically,
employees driven by promotion focus experience more auton-
omous forms of regulation, are guided by their inner aspira-
tions and ideals and are focused on personal advancement
and growth (Luchak & Gellatly, 2007), rather than on external
forces and regulations (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). They are
sensitive to positive aspects of their job and experience higher
levels of job involvement and satisfaction (Lanaj, Chang, &
Johnson, 2012). Furthermore, people in promotion focus are
more sensitive to the existence of potential gain and experi-
ence emotions on the range between cheerfulness when gain
is achieved, and dejection when gain is not achieved (Higgins,
Sha, & Friedman, 1997; Scholer, Zou, Fujita, Stronessner, &
Higgins, 2010). This means that they experience high positive
arousal feelings (e.g., cheerfulness, elation) when striving for
gains and negative feelings in the case of non-gain. Thus,
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
promotional-focused workers will tend to stay with the orga-
nization because they like what they do within the organiza-
tion and want to do it. In other words, they are affectively
committed to the organization. Indeed, earlier studies demon-
strated a positive association between promotion focus and
affective commitment (Gorman et al., 2012; Lanaj et al., 2012).
People in prevention focus, on the other hand, are more
sensitive to the existence of potential loss and experience
emotions on the range between agitation when loss is
expected, and relief when loss is no longer expected
(Scholer et al., 2010). This means that they experience feelings
that are characterized by high arousal and a negative tone
when trying to prevent losses (e.g., anxiety, fear), and neutral
feelings when no loss is expected. Prevention-focused indivi-
duals experience high negative arousal feelings when thinking
of the losses that are associated with leaving their work, such
as losing what they already achieved at work, and therefore
will try to stick to their job in order to prevent those potential
losses, thus will be more likely to have continuance commit-
ment. Indeed, it was found that continuance commitment was
positively correlated with stress (Meyer et al., 2002) and anxi-
ety (Mignonac & Herrbach, 2004).
With regard to commitment to safety, we propose a similar
dynamic. When individuals are promotion-focused, they are
likely to pay attention to their aspirations and goals, focus on
gains and experience a sense of high positive arousal. Within
such a frame, they understand the importance of safety and its
possible gains, have a positive emotional activation towards
the issue of safety and believe it is a vital and meaningful part
of their work. Furthermore, since promotion-focused indivi-
duals are intrinsically motivated and are mostly guided by
their inner ideals and not by external forces, it is assumed
that they will be committed to safety in an autonomous form,
having a conviction that safety is important, i.e., be affectively
committed to safety.
In contrast, employees driven by prevention focus experi-
ence more control and external forms of regulations (Meyer
et al., 2004), are guided by a sense of necessity, attempt to
fulfil obligations and avoid losses and act out of a sense of
duty and in accordance with expectations (Higgins, 1997,
1998). Prevention-focused individuals are directed towards
avoiding mismatches to desired end-states, and are more
attentive to what they could lose than to what they could
gain (Crowe & Higgins, 1997), while experience a sense of
negative emotional arousal (e.g., anxiety) aiming to achieve a
sense of relief. They are sensitive to negative information and
to unfavourable aspects of their job (Andrews, Kacmar, &
Kacmar, 2014) and experience lower levels of job involvement
and satisfaction (Lanaj et al., 2012). Therefore, prevention-
focused employees fear to lose what they have already
invested or achieved. Hence, prevention-focused individuals
are more likely to be committed to safety out of a sense of
obligation or necessity, aiming to lower their sense of anxiety,
i.e., be continually committed to safety.
Based on these, we hypothesize the following mediation
model:
Hypothesis 1: Follower’s promotion focus mediates the posi-
tive relationship between the leader’s transformational
5
leadership style and follower’s affective organizational com-
mitment and affective commitment to safety.
Hypothesis 2: Follower’s prevention focus mediates the posi-
tive relationship between the leader’s transactional (active and
passive) leadership style and follower’s continuance organiza-
tional commitment and continuance commitment to safety.
In order to examine our hypotheses, we present three
studies: one focuses on general organizational commitment
(Study 1), and two additional studies (an experimental study
and a field study) that focus specifically on commitment to
safety (Study 2 and Study 3).
Study 1 methods: a field study
Sample and data collection procedure
The study was conducted in a large communication service
call centre in Israel. Access to the organization was gained
through contact with the CEO and personnel manager. After
obtaining organizational permission for data collection,
research assistants distributed the study questionnaires
including the study independent, mediators and dependent
variables to randomly chosen workgroup members in the
customer service workgroups. We explained to all participants,
on a written instruction page, that participation is voluntary,
they could withdraw from the study at any time with no
implications, only the authors could access the data and all
data would be kept confidential. We approached only work-
groups in which the manager served at least 6 months as the
manager of that particular workgroup. Response rate was
about 91%. The final sample included 315 employees from
65 different customer service workgroups. In each workgroup,
the number of respondents ranged from 3 to 13, with a mean
of 4.85 respondents per workgroup. The employee sample
included 58.2% women, employees’ mean age was
27.48 years (SD = 5.63), and average organizational seniority
was M = 25.00 months (SD = 31.46 months).
Measures
Independent variables
Leadership style (measured on the individual level and aggre-
gated to the group level): The leadership styles of the work-
group managers were measured by the Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire (MLQ) version 5 (Bass & Avolio, 1990) which
includes 28 items. Each workgroup member evaluated his/
her manager on the following: the transformational leadership
scale which was comprised of four subscales of four items
each: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual
stimulation and individualized consideration. The four items of
the attributed charisma subscale were removed from the
transformational leadership scale, since it has been criticized
for measuring impression from leader instead of leaders’ beha-
viours (Kark et al., 2015; Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003; Yukl,
2002). The transactional leadership scale included 12 items: 4
items of transactional active (MBEA), 4 items of transactional
passive (MBEP) and 4 items of contingent reward.
6 M. DELEGACH ET AL.
To test the structure of the leadership styles, and due to the
nested structure of the data, we conducted three separate
multilevel confirmatory factor analyses (multilevel CFA) using
the Mplus 7.2 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012), with weighted
least square method (WLSM) that calculates weighted least
square parameter estimates using a diagonal weight matrix
with standard errors and mean-adjusted chi-square test statis-
tic that use a full weight matrix. Model fit is evaluated using
the following fit statistics: comparative fit index (CFI), and
Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) higher than .90 are considered a
good fit, and root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) between .05 and .08 is considered a reasonable fit,
and between 0 and .05 is considered an excellent fit (Bentler &
Bonnet, 1980; Dyer, Hanges, & Hall, 2005). However, the use of
RMSEA test statistics in multilevel CFA is arbitrary (Chen,
Curran, Bollen, Kirby, & Paxton, 2008), and hence for smaller
sample size such as ours, the cut-off point of .05 is too con-
servative. Therefore, similar to Lam, Wan, and Roussin (2016),
we consider a RMSEA value below .10 as a reasonable fit.
First, we examined a general a multilevel CFA model in
which all 28 items loaded directly onto a single factor. The
result revealed that the general model did not adequately fit
the data (χ2(350, N = 315) = 2007.531, p < .01, CFI = .85,
TLI = .84, RMSEA = .12). Second, a multilevel two-correlated
higher order factors model was tested, in which the 16
transformational leadership items loaded on the transforma-
tional leadership higher order factor, and the 12 transactional
leadership items loaded on the transactional leadership
higher order factor. These results also demonstrated a non-
acceptable fit level (χ2(349, N = 315) = 2000.21, p < .01,
CFI = .85, TLI = .84, RMSEA = .12). Moreover, inspection of
the factor loading showed that the contingent reward and
transactional active subscales loaded on the transactional
factor in opposite direction to the transactional passive
scale. Furthermore, the contingent reward subscale had
strong correlations with the transformational subscales (all
r > .64, M r = 0.71) and had a latent loading of Est = .94
(SE = .04) on the transformational higher order factor.
Therefore, we removed the contingent reward subscale
from further analyses. Thus, in accordance with previous
studies (e.g., Hetland & Sandal, 2003; Turner, Barling,
Epitropaki, Butcher, & Milner, 2002), we examined a higher
order multilevel 3-factor model in which the transformational
items were loaded on the first higher order factor, the trans-
actional active items were loaded on the second higher order
factor and the transactional passive items were loaded on
the third higher order factor. The results revealed a good fit
of data (χ2(249, N = 315) = 926.410, p < .01, CFI = .91,
TLI = .90, RMSEA = .09). Estimates of alpha reliability were
.92, .65 and .64 for transformational, transactional active and
transactional passive, respectively.4
The situational SRF questionnaire was based on
Lockwood, Jordan, and Kunda (2002; also validated by
Kark et al., 2015; measured on the individual level). The
scale contains 9 items measuring situational promotion
focus (α = .74) and 9 items measuring situational prevention
focus (α = .77). This scale was anchored on a 9-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 = to a very slight extent, to 9 = to a
very large extent.
Dependent variables
Affective and continuance organizational commitments (mea-
sured on the individual level) was measured with Meyer
et al.’s (1993) commitment scales, which included 6 items of
affective organizational commitment (e.g., “I would be very
happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization”,
α = .86), and 6 items of continuance organizational commit-
ment (e.g., “Right now, staying with my organization is a
matter of necessity as much as desire”, α = .68). This scale
was anchored on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from
1 = strongly disagree, to 7 = strongly agree.
Control variables
We controlled for employees’ organizational tenure, because
prior research has established negative relations among
employees’ tenure and organizational commitment (Mathieu
& Zajac, 1990; Meyer et al., 2002). In addition, we controlled for
age, gender and level of education (all employees participat-
ing in this study were permanent employees of the
organization).
Results
Level of analysis
In this study, we espouse the perspective that leadership can
be a shared experience of the workgroup members and is not
necessarily an individual perception of a specific employee. A
leader directs actions and behaviours towards the workgroup
as a whole (Carter, Armenakis, Feild, & Mossholder, 2013).
Therefore, group members’ perceptions of the leader should
be rather similar (Korek et al., 2010). Thus, we treated the
constructs of leadership (e.g., transformational leadership,
transactional active and transactional passive leadership) as
group-level variables. Regulatory focus and the studies’
dependent variables refer to employees’ individual attitudes
and feelings; accordingly, they were treated theoretically and
empirically as individual-level variables. Results revealed med-
ian rwg values of .96, .75 and .77, ICC(1) = .35, .19 and .14, and
ICC(2) = .72, .54 and .45, for transformational, transactional
active and transactional passive, respectively. Furthermore, to
assess the discriminating power of the scales, we conducted
one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with leadership style
as the dependent variable, and the workgroup index as the
independent variable. These analyses indicated significant var-
iance between groups (transformational, F(64,250) = 3.56,
p < .01; transactional active, F(64,250) = 2.16, p < .01; and
transactional passive, F(64,250) = 1.80, p < .01). Thus, the results
warrant consideration of the three leadership scales as shared
workgroup perceptions.
Hypotheses testing
Table 1 summarizes the means, standard deviations and correla-
tions among the individual-level variables. We further examined
the variance inflation factors (VIF) to assess whether multicolli-
nearity was a concern in our sample. All values were well below
the cut-off value of 10 (Kutner, Nachtsheim, Neter, & Li, 2005),
indicating no risk of multicollinearity (VIF indexes for
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 7

Table 1. Study 1 – means, standard deviations and correlations among individual and team-level variables.
Individual level Team level
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. Gendera
2. Age 27.48 5.63 −.36**
3. Organizational tenure (months) 25.00 31.46 −.14* .58**
4. Education 14.01 2.08 −.22** .39** .19**
5. Situational promotion focus 6.80 1.19 .20* −.33** −.30** −.23** (.74)
6. Situational prevention focus 4.93 1.56 .28** −.34** −.19** −.33** .46** (.77)
7. Affective organizational commitment 4.62 1.31 .07 −.04 −.04 −.01 .30** .10+ (.86)
8. Continuance organizational commitment 3.61 1.10 .18** −.22** −.07 −.14* .16** .36** .07 (.68)
9. Transformational leadership style 3.81 .51 .03 −.22** −.24** .03 .19** .06 .25** .08 (.92)
10. Transactional active 3.16 .49 .07 −.18** −.08 −.21** .17** .31** .06 .19** .32* (.65)
11. Transactional passive 2.28 .44 −.07 .14* .05 −.02 −.15** −.01 −.26** −.10+ −.79** −.17 (.64)
N = 315 for individual-level variables. N = 65 for aggregated team-level variables (columns 9-11); Correlations between team-level variables (i.e., leadership style)
and individual-level variables (i.e., organizational commitment) were tested at the individual level. Relationships and significance tests associated with the
individual-level descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for the variables in the study should be viewed with caution until properly modelled in the
Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses, because the correlation table does not account for the fact that individual-level relationships might also be affected
by the non-independent nature of the data.
a
Gender: 1. Male, 2. Female; +p < .10.,*p < .05,**p < .01.

transformational leadership = 1.75, transactional active leader-
ship = 1.16, transactional passive leadership = 1.68, situational
promotion focus = 1.32 and situational prevention focus = 1.38).
The study data had a hierarchical structure in which indivi-
duals were nested within workgroups; thus, we implemented
the method described by Bauer, Preacher, and Gil (2006) to a
random intercepts model using SAS 9.2. We specified level 1
situational regulatory foci to the dependent variables of affec-
tive and continuance organizational commitment, and
employees’ work tenure was included as a control variable
with fixed effects on the dependent variables. The covariances
among random intercepts were also estimated (Bauer et al.,
2006). We specified the cross-level direct relationships
between the three leadership styles and the dependent vari-
ables, and the indirect relationships between leadership styles
and the two dependent variables through level 1 regulatory
foci (2→1→1 model).We applied a parametric bootstrap pro-
cedure (Bauer et al., 2006) with 10,000 random draws (see
Figure 1).
Results demonstrated that transformational leadership was
positively related to situational promotion focus (although not
significant at the conventional p < .05) (γ = .38, SE = .21,
p < .10) and was not significantly related to situational pre-
vention focus (γ = .18, SE = .29, ns). Situational promotion
focus was positively related to affective organizational com-
mitment (γ = .34, SE = .07, p < .01) and was not significantly
related to continuance organizational commitment (γ = –.06,
SE = .06, ns). Results of the Monte–Carlo method showed a
positive indirect relationship between transformational leader-
ship and affective organizational commitment via situational
promotion focus (although not significant at the conventional
p < .05) (indirect effect = .13, 90% CI [.01, .26]), partially
supporting Hypothesis 1. In addition, transactional active lea-
dership style was positively related to situational prevention
focus (γ = .99, SE = .23, p < .01) and was not significantly
related to situational promotion focus (γ = .25, SE = .17, ns).
Situational prevention focus was positively related to continu-
ance organizational commitment (γ = .14, SE = .05, p < .01) and

A Focus on Commitment
Figures list
.11

Group level
.02 TS-P -.27 TFL
TS-A

.99** .38+

.65
Prevention
Promotion Individual level
SRF
SRF

.14** .34**
-.35
Individual level
COC AOC

Figure 1. Study 1 – mediation model: regulatory foci as mediators between leadership styles and affective and continuance organizational commitments.
N = 65 for team-level variables, N = 315 for individual-level variables. Numbers are the parameter estimates of the model. TFL: transformational leadership; TS-P:
transactional passive; TS-A: transactional active; COC: continuance organizational commitment; AOC: affective organizational commitment; SRF: self-regulatory focus.
The dashed lines indicate the parameters that were not significant at the .05 alpha level. The curved lines indicate the covariance between the variables.+p < .10,
**p < .01.
8 M. DELEGACH ET AL.
Leadership
Style a
-.77**(.24) .69**(.23)
Prevention Promotion
SRF SRF
.20**(.06)
ACS
Figure 2. Study 2 – mediation model: regulatory focus as a mediator between
leadership styles and affective commitment to safety.
N = 107.aLeadership style: 1.Transactional leadership style, 2.Transformational
leadership style. ACS: affective commitment to safety; SRF: self-regulatory focus.
The dashed lines indicate the parameters that were not significant at the .05
alpha level. **p < .01.
Leadership
Style a
-.77**(.24) .69**(.23)
Prevention Promotion
-.35*(.15)
SRF SRF
.11* (.05)
CCS
Figure 3. Study 2 – mediation model: regulatory focus as a mediator between
leadership styles and continuance commitment to safety.
N = 107.aLeadership style: 1.Transactional leadership style, 2.Transformational
leadership style. CCS: continuance commitment to safety; SRF: self-regulatory
focus. The dashed lines indicate the parameters that were not significant at the
.05 alpha level. *p<.05, **p < .01.
was not significantly related to affective organizational commit-
ment (γ = –.02, SE = .05, ns). Results of the Monte–Carlo method
showed a positive indirect relationship between transactional
active leadership style and continuance organizational commit-
ment via situational prevention focus (indirect effect = .16, 95% CI
[.04, .27]), which partially supported our mediation Hypothesis 2.
However, the transactional passive leadership style had non-sig-
nificant relationships with situational regulatory foci (γ = –.09,
SE = .23, ns; and γ = .10, SE = .33, ns, for situational promotion
and prevention foci, respectively). Gender had only a positive
significant relationship with affective organizational commitment
(β = .31, SE = .16, p = .05) and had no significant relationship with
continuance organizational commitment (β = .02, SE = .14, ns).
Employee age, tenure and level of education had non-significant
relationships with affective organizational commitment (β = .01,
SE = .01, ns; β = .00, SE = .00, ns; β = .03, SE = .09, ns, respectively)
and with continuance organizational commitment (β = –.01,
SE = .02, ns; β = .00, SE = .00, ns; β = .07, SE = .08, ns, respectively).
In summation, the transformational leadership style promo-
tion focus affective commitment to the organization path of
the model was supported in this study. However, it was the
transactional active leadership style that was associated with
prevention focus and continuous commitment to the organi-
zation. In many cases, commitment directed to a specific
target was a better predictor of behaviours and outcomes
relevant to that target than was the more general organiza-
tional commitment (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002). Thus, we
focused the next studies on a particular target of commitment,
i.e., employee commitment to safety.
Study 2 methods: an experimental scenario study
Sample and data collection procedure
Data for this study were collected at two points in time,
2 weeks apart.5 In Time 1 of the study, data were collected
from eight classes of psychology, economics and computer
science and the study questionnaires were distributed to all
students present in class at the time. Participants read an
introduction page as described in Study 1. A total of 175
undergraduate students completed a chronic SRF scale and
demographics data questionnaire. In Time 2 of the study, the
research assistant returned to the participating classes and
randomly distributed the two written scenarios (transforma-
tional/transactional leader scenario), accompanied by situa-
tional SRF, and safety commitment questionnaires. All the
students who were in class at Time 2 and also participated
in Time 1 of the study completed the questionnaires. In order
to adjust the participants’ responses between Time 1 and Time
2 of the study, the participants were asked to note the last
four digits of their social security number on the question-
naires. Hence, the final sample included 107 participants
(38.9% attrition) that had data for both points in time, the
ages of the participants ranged from 24 to 39 years (M = 28.5,
SD = 2.46 years), 71% females.
To assess potential differences between the samples of
Time 1 and Time 2, we conducted a multivariate analysis of
variance (MANOVA) with chronic SRFs as the dependent vari-
ables, and participating in Time 2 of the study as an indepen-
dent variable. There were no significant differences between
the samples on chronic SRFs (F(2, 172) = 2.02, ns). In addition, in
order to asses potential dependencies between the two sam-
ples and the participants’ demographics, we conducted a χ2
test, which demonstrated no differences for gender (χ2(1,
N = 175) = .23, ns), and an independent samples t-test,
which demonstrated no differences for age (t109.21=1.29, ns).
Measures
Scenarios
We used two scenarios drawing on items from the MLQ (Bass
& Avolio, 1990). The scenarios described the same work situa-
tion but differed in the descriptions of the manager’s beha-
viours. The first scenario described transformational leadership
behaviours (i.e., intellectual stimulation, individualized consid-
eration, idealized influence, inspirational motivation). The sec-
ond scenario described monitoring behaviours typical of
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
transactional leadership (i.e., contingent reward, management
by exception active and passive) (see Kark et al., 2015 for
scenarios). After reading the scenario, the participants were
asked to imagine themselves as employees in the fictitious
organization, working under the supervision of the leader
described in the scenario.
To assess the scenarios’ content validity, we conducted a
pre-test in which we randomly distributed the scenarios to
84 students (N = 44 read the transformational scenario, and
N = 40 read the transactional scenario) who were asked to
rank the leaders described in the scenario on the MLQ
scales of transformational (20 items) and transactional (12
items) leadership styles. Results of a MANOVA showed the
expected significant differences in the predicted directions
between the samples for the 4 subscales of transforma-
tional leadership (intellectual stimulation F(1,82) = 202.86,
p < .01, individualized consideration F(1,82) = 207.5,
p < .01, idealized influence F(1,82) = 70.95, p < .01, inspira-
tional motivation F(1,82) = 180.72, p < .01), the transactional
active F(1,82) = 76.72, p < .01, and passive F(1,82) = 33.95,
p < .01 subscales, but not for the contingent reward sub-
scale F(1,82) = .12, ns (since we did not use the contingent
reward subscale in the other two studies of the current
paper, we decided for similar reasons to omit the subscales
from Study 2 as well, e.g., Judge & Piccolo, 2004 meta-
analysis).
Independent variables
The situational SRF questionnaire used in Study 1 was used in
Study 2 to measure situational promotion focus (α = .93) and
prevention focus (α = .84) on the individual level. The partici-
pants were asked to think of themselves as employees in a
workplace under the supervision of the manager described in
the scenario. For example, “As an employee in this company
working with this manager, I am worried that I will not meet
my work obligations and responsibilities”. This scale was
anchored on a 9-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = to a very
slight extent, to 9 = to a very large extent.
Safety commitment (measured on the individual level). The
safety commitment scales were adapted from Meyer et al.’s
(1993) theoretical distinction between affective commitment
and continuance commitment and from the questionnaire
they developed. In order to embed the items to the safety
context, three safety research experts tested the potential
relevancy of each organizational commitment item to the
safety field. Based on this analysis, we composed five items
for each dimension of commitment to safety – affective com-
mitment to safety (α = .90) and continuance commitment to
safety (α = .73), in which we used the original content of the
items but embedded them in the context of safety. For exam-
ple, the original item “If I had not already put so much of
myself into this organization, I might consider working else-
where” was changed to “if I had not already put so much of
myself into maintaining safety around here, I might consider
preferring other goals (e.g., performance, efficiency)”. An
example of a general item that was not adaptable and thus
deleted was “I do not feel like ‘part of the family’ at my
organization”. CFA demonstrated accepted results (χ2(32,
N = 107) = 46.20, p < .05, TLI = .96, CFI = .97, RMSEA = .07).6
9
Control variables
In all our analyses, we controlled for participants’ chronic
prevention and promotion foci (Lockwood et al., 2002; 9
items measuring promotion focus α = .82 and 9 items measur-
ing prevention focus α = .83). In addition, we controlled for
gender and age. Since all participants were undergraduate
students, we did not control for educational level.
Results
Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and correla-
tions among the study variables. In order to ensure the ran-
dom distribution of chronic SRFs in two study conditions, we
conducted a MANOVA with the two experimental conditions
(transformational/transactional leadership) as an independent
variable and the two chronic SRFs (prevention /promotion) as
the dependent variables. Results demonstrated a non-signifi-
cant effect (F(2,104) = .37, ns). In addition, there were no sig-
nificant differences in gender (χ2(1) = .23, ns), and age
(t109.21 = 1.29, ns) between the two groups.
VIF for each of the independent, mediation and chronic
regulatory focus control variables were below the critical value
of 10.0 (VIF indexes for leadership style = 1.18, situational
promotion focus = 1.31, situational prevention focus = 1.34,
chronic promotion focus = 1.22 and chronic prevention
focus = 1.25). In order to test our hypotheses, we conducted
multi-mediator mediation analyses with confidence interval
estimations (Monte–Carlo method; Preacher, Zyphur, &
Zhang, 2010) using SAS 9.2. We specified direct links between
the leadership style variable and the mediator and dependent
variables, and indirect links between leadership style and the
study-dependent variables through situational prevention and
promotion foci. We controlled for chronic prevention and
promotion foci by specifying the direct relationships between
chronic and situational prevention foci, and between chronic
and situational promotion foci. Thus, the results can demon-
strate the influence of situational SRF above and beyond the
chronic SRF. In addition, we specified direct relationships
between gender and age and the dependent variables. To
estimate the hypothesized indirect relationships, we used a
parametric bootstrap procedure (Preacher et al., 2010) with
10,000 Monte–Carlo replications.
The results show (see Figures 2 and 3): (1) an indirect positive
significant link between transformational leadership and affec-
tive commitment to safety via situational promotion SRF (indirect
effect = .13, 95% CI [.03, .28]), supporting Hypothesis 1 of the
commitment to safety concept. The indirect effect between
transactional leadership style and affective commitment to
safety via situational prevention SRF was not significant (indirect
effect = –.07, 95% CI [–.19, .02]); (2) an indirect positive significant
link between transactional leadership style and continuous com-
mitment to safety via situational prevention SRF (indirect
effect = –.09, 95% CI [–.20, –.01]), supporting Hypothesis 2 of
the commitment to safety concept. The indirect effect between
transformational leadership and continuous commitment to
safety via situational promotion SRF was not significant (indirect
effect = –.02, 95% CI [–.11, .06]). Gender only had a positive
significant relationship with affective commitment to safety
10 M. DELEGACH ET AL.

Table 2. Study 2– means, standard deviations and correlations (Cronbach Alphas on the diagonal, N = 107).
Leadership style
TFL TSL
M M
(SD) (SD) F(1,105) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Gendera
2. Age 31.54 31.47 .02 −.39**
(2.46) (2.49)
3. Leadership .06 .01
styleb
4. Chronic 7.22 7.30 .24 .00 −.18* −.05 (.82)
promotion (.78) (.96)
focus
5. Chronic 4.71 4.90 .60 −.05 −.06 −.08 .08 (.83)
prevention (1.29) (1.26)
focus
6. Situational promotion focus 7.06 6.42 6.34* .00 −.09 .24* .39** .13 (.93)
(1.07) (1.47)
7. Situational 4.74 5.60 10.82** −.03 −.04 −.31** .06 .41** −.11 (.84)
prevention (1.38) (1.31)
focus
8. Affective 3.33 2.99 4.12* .22* −.14 .19* .11 .11 .48** −.18 (.90)
commitment (.81) (.90)
to safety
9. Continuance 3.13 3.61 11.01* −.09 −.04 −.31** .02 .11 −.04 .46** .01 (.73)
commitment (.78) (.71)
to safety
a
Gender: 1. Male, 2. Female; bLeadership style: 1.Transactional leadership style, 2.Transformational leadership style.
*p < .05, **p < .01.

(β = .38, SE = .19, p < .05), indicating that women show higher
affective commitment to safety than men; however, no signifi-
cant relationship was found between gender and continuance
commitment to safety (β = –.16, SE = .17, ns). Employees’ age had
non-significant relationships with affective commitment to
safety (β = .01, SE = .03, ns) and with continuance commitment
to safety (β = .02, SE = .03, ns).
Study 3 methods: a field study
Sample and data collection procedure
The study was conducted in a large governmental organiza-
tion in Israel, in which safety is of utmost importance, after
obtaining all necessary permissions.7 Questionnaires with
the independent, mediators and the dependent variables
were administered to the participants during working
hours. Answering the questionnaire was not mandatory.
Managers were not present in the room while employees
completed their questionnaires. The criteria for workgroup
participation in the study were: (1) at least 10 employees;
and (2) minimum 6 months of the workgroup manager’s
tenure in the current position, to allow the employees to
become familiar with the leader and his/her leadership style.
The final sample included 798 technical employees (e.g.,
mechanics and electricians) from 49 different workgroups.
In each workgroup, the number of respondents ranged from
6 to 26 (M = 16 respondents per workgroup). On the whole,
16% of the employee sample were women, employees’
mean age was 25.36 years (SD = 7.23), and seniority in the
current unit ranged from 6 months to 30 years
(M = 57.92 months, SD = 73.2 months).
Measures
Independent variables
Leadership style (measured on the individual level and aggre-
gated to the group level): The leadership styles of the work-
group managers were assessed by their employees using the
MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 1990) which included 28 items (as in
Study 1). To test the structure of the leadership styles, we
applied the multilevel CFA procedure with the WLSM method
(described in Study 1). The general one factor model (χ2(350,
N = 798) = 5715.71, p < .01, CFI = .82, TLI = .81, RMSEA = .14)
revealed a non-acceptable fit level. A two-correlated high-
order factors multilevel model (χ2(349, N = 798) = 5537.99,
p < .01, CFI = .83, TLI = .82, RMSEA = .14) revealed a non-
acceptable fit level. However, similarly to the findings of Study
1, the contingent reward and transactional active subscales
loaded in the opposite direction to the transactional passive
subscale on the transactional higher order factor. The contin-
gent reward subscale had strong correlations with the trans-
formational subscales (all r > .50, M r = 0.60) and had a latent
loading of Est = .76 (SE = .04) on the transformational higher
order factor. Based on these results, and similarly to Study 1,
we eliminated the contingent reward subscale from further
analyses. Finally, we tested a higher order 3-factor multilevel
model in which the 16 transformational items were loaded on
the transformational higher order factor, the 4 transactional
active items were loaded on the transactional active higher
order factor, and the 4 transactional passive items were loaded
on the transactional passive higher order factor. The results
revealed a good fit to the data (χ2(249, N = 798) = 2084.97,
p < .01, CFI = .92, TLI = .91, RMSEA = .09). The estimates of
alpha reliability were .93, .72 and .73 for transformational,
transactional active and transactional passive, respectively.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 11

Situational SRF (measured on the individual level): We used Hypotheses testing

the same scales as in Studies 1 and 2. Calculating Cronbach
alpha for the scales, two prevention focus items substantially
lowered the scales score; thus, they were excluded from the
prevention focus scale. Final scales scores were α = .85, and
.75 for promotion and prevention focus, respectively.
Commitment to safety (measured on the individual level):
We used the same scales as in Study 2. The multilevel CFA
demonstrated acceptable results (χ2(53, N = 797) = 195.64,
p < .01, CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .05; α = .91 and .77 for
affective and continuance commitment to safety,
respectively).8
For all scales above, responses were collected using 5-point
Likert scales ranging from 1 = to a very slight extent to 5 = to a
very large extent.
Control variables
In the analyses, we controlled for the type of employment (1.
temporary employee, 2. permanent employee), and level of
education, since previous research demonstrated their signifi-
cant contribution to organizational safety (e.g., Fabiano, Currò,
Reverberi, & Pastorino, 2008; Lu & Yang, 2010). Similarly to
studies 1 and 2, we also controlled for age, gender and
organizational tenure.
Results
Level of analysis
In this study, as in Study 1, we treated the constructs of
leadership as group-level variables; and regulatory foci and
the dependent variables as individual-level variables. Median
rwg = .92, .75 and .74, ICC(1) = .20, .08 and .15, and ICC
(2) = .80, .69 and .74 (F(48,797) = 5.10, p < .01; F(48,
797) = 2.46, p < .01; F(48, 797) = 3.83, p < .01) for transforma-
tional, transactional active and transactional passive, respec-
tively. These results justify consideration of the scales as
shared group-level perceptions.
Table 3 summarizes the means, standard deviations and cor-
relations of the individual-level variables. VIF for each of the
independent and mediation variables were below the critical
value of 10.0 (VIF indexes for transformation leadership
style = 2.98, transactional active leadership = 1.12, transac-
tional passive leadership = 2.78, situational promotion
focus = 1.03 and situational prevention focus = 1.02). Due to
the nested structure of the data, we applied the same method
as in the Study 1 (Bauer et al., 2006). Worker education and
type of employment were included in all analyses as control
variables with fixed effects on the dependent variables (see
Figure 4).
Results demonstrated that transformational leadership was
positively related to situational promotion focus (γ = .35,
SE = .11, p < .01) and was not significantly related to situa-
tional prevention focus (γ = –.11, SE = .15, ns). Situational
promotion focus was positively related to affective commit-
ment to safety (γ = .49, SE = .04, p < .01) and to continuance
commitment to safety (γ = .17, SE = .04, p < .01). Results of the
Monte–Carlo method showed a positive indirect relationship
between transformational leadership and affective commit-
ment to safety via situational promotion focus (indirect
effect = .16, 95% CI [.07, .27]), supporting Hypothesis 1. In
addition, there was a positive indirect relationship between
transformational leadership and continuance commitment to
safety via situational promotion focus (indirect effect = .06,
95% CI [.02, .11]). Transactional active leadership style was
positively related to situational prevention focus (γ = .32,
SE = .12, p < .01) and was not significantly related to situa-
tional promotion focus (γ = .01, SE = .09, ns). Situational
prevention focus was positively related to continuance com-
mitment to safety (γ = .29, SE = .03, p < .01) and was not
significantly related to affective commitment to safety
(γ = –.02, SE = .03, ns). Results of the Monte–Carlo method
showed a positive indirect relationship between transactional
active leadership style and continuance commitment to safety
via situational prevention focus (indirect effect = .08, 95% CI
[.02, .16]), which supported Hypothesis 2 for transactional

Table 3. Study 3– means, standard deviations and correlations among individual and team-level variables.
Individual level Team level
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. Gendera
2. Age 25.36 7.23 −.28**
3. Type of employmentb −.24** .69**
4. Organizational tenure 72.17 82.18 −.26** .95** .65**
5. Education 12.85 1.13 −.18** .33** .31** .27**
6. Situational promotion focus 3.93 .67 −.01 .11** .19** .10** .07* (.85)
7. Situational prevention focus 2.87 .83 .03 −.07* −.07* −.07 −.09* .07 (.75)
8. Affective commitment to safety 3.57 .90 −.12** .38** .41** .36** .13** .41** −.01 (.91)
9. Continuance commitment to safety 3.00 .82 .02 −.13** −.15** −.12** −.07 .09** .36** −.01 (.77)
10. Transformational leadership style 3.49 .42 −.04 .05 .03 .06 .02 .16** −.06 .13** −.11** (.93)
11. Transactional active 3.37 .33 .07 −.01 .02 .01 .01 .07 .09* .11** .08* .32* (.72)
12. Transactional passive 2.31 .38 .03 .01 −.01 .00 −.00 −.09** .07* −.09* .11** −.79** −.17 (.73)
N = 798 for individual-level variables. N = 49 for aggregated team-level variables (columns 10-12); Correlations between team-level variables (i.e., leadership style)
and individual-level variables (i.e., safety commitment) were tested at the individual level. Relationships and significance tests associated with the individual-level
descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for the variables in the study should be viewed with caution until properly modelled in the HLM analyses, because
the correlation table does not account for the fact that individual-level relationships might also be affected by the non-independent nature of the data.
a
Gender: 1. Male, 2. Female; bType of employment: 1.Temporary, 2. Permanent.
*p < .05, **p < .01.
12 M. DELEGACH ET AL.
-.02
.08 TS-P
TS-A
.32*
.23
Prevention
.24*
SRF
.29**
.14
CCS
Figure 4. Study 3 – mediation model: regulatory foci as mediators between leadership styles and affective and continuance commitment to safety.
N = 49 for team-level variables, N = 798 for individual-level variables. Numbers are the parameter estimates of the model. TFL: transformational leadership, TS-P:
transactional passive, TS-A: transactional active; CCS: continuance commitment to safety: ACS: affective commitment to safety; SRF: self-regulatory focus.The dashed
lines indicate the parameters that were not significant at the .05 alpha level. The curved lines indicate the covariance between the variables. *p < .05, **p < .01.
active leadership style. Transactional passive leadership style
had non-significant relationships with situational regulatory
foci (γ = .16, SE = .12, ns and γ = .18, SE = .16, ns for situational
promotion and prevention foci, respectively).
Gender, age, education level and organizational tenure had
non-significant relationships with affective commitment to
safety (β = –.06, SE = .07, ns; β = .03, SE = .01, ns; β = .00,
SE = .03, ns; β = .00, SE = .03, ns, respectively), and with
continuance commitment to safety (β = –.06, SE = .07, ns;
β = .01, SE = .01, ns; β = .00, SE = .03, ns; β = –.00, SE = .00,
ns, respectively). Type of employment was positively related to
affective commitment to safety (β = .59, SE = .06, p < .01) and
negatively related to continuance commitment to safety
(β = –.24, SE = .06, p < .01), i.e., tenured employees are more
affectively and less continuingly committed to safety.
Discussion
One of the significant challenges modern organizations and
leaders face is the limited commitment of employees to their
organizations. A recent Gallup poll (2013) demonstrated that
only one of eight employees reports that he/she feels commit-
ment to and identification with his/her workplace and its goals
(Ibarra, 2015). The present study identified the role of
employee self-regulatory foci as one potential motivational
mechanism that explains how leadership behaviours are asso-
ciated with followers’ commitment to the organization. We
focus on both general commitment, as well as a discrete and
novel form of commitment, i.e., commitment to safety.
Moreover, the study results demonstrated how different
aspects of the SRF – prevention and promotion – were differ-
entially associated with followers’ general commitment and
their commitment to safety. Our hypotheses were supported
in three different studies in the field and in the lab, showing
that leadership was associated with employee commitment
through its influence on followers’ self-regulatory foci, such
that the different types of motivations that were elicited
Group level
-.25 TFL
.35**
Promotion Individual level
SRF
.18**
.49**
Individual level
ACS
among followers were associated with different types of
attachment to the organization. A transformational leader
increased followers’ affective (organizational and safety) com-
mitment by priming the followers’ promotion focus. In addi-
tion, a transactional leader (and specifically transactional
active leader) increased the followers’ continuance (organiza-
tional and safety) commitment by priming the followers’ pre-
vention focus.
In contrast to our hypothesis, transactional passive had
non-significant relationships with regulatory foci, i.e., transac-
tional passive did not arouse motivations among employees,
not in the form of promotion nor in the form of prevention.
This may be a result of the stronger relationship between
transformational and transactional active leadership styles
with the self-regulatory focus components. These were the
monitoring aspects of leadership – transactional active beha-
viours – that were aligned with prevention focus. It may also
be attributed to the inactive component of the management
by exception passive, which may not be an effective mode of
leadership to motivate followers and facilitate their attach-
ment to the organization and to specific targets (commitment
to safety).
The results of this study provide three major contributions
to the leadership, motivation, commitment and safety litera-
tures. First, limited research has systematically addressed the
motivational, emotional and psychological processes through
which leadership translates into employees’ forms of attach-
ment to the organization (e.g., Gillet & Vandenberghe, 2014;
Pierro, Raven, Amato, & Bélanger, 2013). Our work offers a
coherent framework showing that self-regulatory foci can be
a major motivating mechanism that mediates between leader-
ship style and followers’ subsequent attachment to the orga-
nization in the form of commitment. The study demonstrated
that leaders are able to influence followers’ inner selves and
motivational orientations, and that this in turn, can affect
followers’ attitudes towards the organization; leading fol-
lowers to feel that they have a strong emotional bond with
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
the organization, and that being an employee, there is a part
of who they are and how they define themselves, or that the
organization is a place they work for and stay in, mainly due to
concrete benefits they obtain. This sheds needed light on the
self-motivations and inner individual processes that underlie
employees’ commitment, which have received little attention
in previous work (Johnson et al., 2010). This also supports and
enhances earlier studies that have demonstrated that leaders
can tap into different aspects of followers’ sense of self (e.g.,
relational versus collective self; Wang & Howell, 2012), and by
doing so can influence followers’ performance at work.
It is of interest to note that according to our findings the
promotion and prevention motivational foci have different
paths of influence. Promotion focus affected followers’ emo-
tional attachment by enhancing the affective commitment to
the organization and to safety; however, it did not relate to or
reduce followers’ rational considerations of the loss and the
cost of leaving the organization, namely, their continuance
commitment. On the other hand, prevention focus was asso-
ciated with the rational attachment to the organization in
terms of the costs of leaving or continuance commitment.
Prevention focus did not reduce the emotional aspects, since
it was not related to affective commitment in all three studies.
This suggests that there are different paths to arouse commit-
ment to the organization and to safety that work as non-
related processes. If leaders enact a transactional-active lea-
dership style, they enhance continuance commitment (via
prevention and through taping into followers’ “ought self”),
but by doing so they have no influence on employees’ attach-
ment to the organization through affective commitment. By
being transformational leaders, highlighting a vision, aspira-
tions and the ideal self of followers, leaders can elicit affective
commitment (via promotion), and in most situations this will
not diminish employees’ considerations of continuance
commitment.
Furthermore, a key contribution of our studies is that in
addition to replicating previous findings linking leadership
with organizational commitment (e.g., Meyer & Allen, 1997),
we developed and examined a new specific concept of com-
mitment to safety. This extension strengthens the inferences
about these modes of leadership, their underlying motiva-
tional mechanism and their effect on followers’ attitudes;
and lends wider support to the ability to generalize the theo-
retical model presented in the current study.
Adding the role of self-regulatory foci as a mechanism
through which leadership styles influence commitment
expands our knowledge on leadership and commitment by
unravelling some contradictions in the literature. Although
there are studies that established the direct relationship
between leadership styles and the organizational commitment
components, other studies revealed mixed and inconsistent
findings, especially with the cross associations between trans-
formational leadership and organizational continuance com-
mitment and transactional leadership and affective
commitment (e.g., Clinebell et al., 2013; Connell et al., 2003;
Mohamad, 2012). In the three studies presented, we found
that transformational leadership was positively associated with
followers’ affective commitment through its influence on pro-
motion focus. However, we also found (in Study 3) that
13
promotion focus positively mediated the relationship between
transformational leadership and continuance commitment to
safety. These results are similar to those of Kark et al. (2015)
who demonstrated that transformational leaders enhanced
followers’ promotion focus, which in turn increased followers’
initiative, but also compliance safety behaviours. This implies
that at least in the context of safety, when followers perceive
their leader as transformational, inspirational and encoura-
ging, it increases their promotion focus. This in turn may
create a halo effect in which the followers are motivated by
the leader to meet all organizational standards, whether they
are expected to comply with safety behaviours and to be
continually committed to safety, or are expected to demon-
strate safety initiatives and to be affectively committed to
safety. Thus, when followers perceive the leader as transfor-
mational, the leader is able to enhance a variety of psycholo-
gical states and behaviours contributing to organizational
goals through enhancing followers’ promotion focus.
Furthermore, we found that transactional active leadership
style was associated only with continuance commitment
(organizational or safety) through the leader’s positive influ-
ence on followers’ prevention focus, and it was the followers’
prevention focus that was associated only with continuance
commitment in the three studies. The repeated associations
that we found between prevention focus and continuance
commitment are consistent with Lanaj et al.’s (2012) meta-
analysis results, suggesting that because prevention focus
enhances sensitivity to negative future outcomes and worries
regarding those outcomes, it leads to a more calculated and
cautious type of commitment. Another potential explanation
to previous studies that found a positive correlation between
transactional leadership and affective commitment, as
opposed to the present study, is that previous studies
included contingent rewards in the transactional leadership
measure (e.g., Clinebell et al., 2013). Since contingent reward
has a strong association with the transformational leadership
scales (Bycio, Hackett, & Allen, 1995; Judge & Piccolo, 2004), it
may be that this component increased affective commitment
and when it was excluded from the transactional leadership
scale, as it was in this study, there was no association between
transactional active style and affective commitment.9
Limitations and future research
In order to increase this study’s generalizability and reduce
weaknesses inherent in the use of one research design, we
conducted the study in different organizational contexts,
with diverse research designs (lab experiment and field
studies), and with different levels of analyses (individual
and group levels). When experimental and field designs are
combined to explore the same research model, the
strengths of one can compensate for the weaknesses of
the other (Dipboye, 1990). The use of an experimental
design allows us to manipulate leadership style, which is
difficult to do in a field setting, and to draw causal relation-
ship. Another strength of an experimental study is the ability
to control over participants’ chronic levels of regulatory
focus, and to test the leadership style’s contribution to
followers’ regulatory foci beyond their chronic levels. The
14 M. DELEGACH ET AL.
two field studies that were conducted in natural settings, in
two different types of organizations, provided the opportu-
nity to test the research model in a “real world” environ-
ment, and to expend the generalizability of our results.
However, our findings have several limitations. First, the
field studies’ results may be susceptible to same-source bias.
Analysing leadership style at the group level of analysis may
mitigate this problem to some extent since it reduces the
common variance between the group-level independent lea-
dership and the individual-level dependent variables
(Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). Second,
although leadership style was manipulated in the laboratory
study, the field studies are cross-sectional, precluding asser-
tions of causality. Future studies should apply longitudinal
designs and possibly attempt a field intervention to apply a
structured experiment in a natural setting. Another potential
limitation is the sample of the experimental study, which was
comprised of college students as opposed to employees
within organizations. This reduces the potential generalizabil-
ity of Study 2’s results. In addition, the use of scenarios of
leadership may be different from what employees actually
experience in real work settings. However, all the students
had work experience and were put in a situation they were
familiar with. Moreover, the experimental and field studies’
results converged, which allows the assumption that the
experimental study results are stable and valid.
Future research should explore the role of augmentation and/
or attenuation effects of different leadership styles on the levels of
elicited prevention and promotion and how they may be enacted
simultaneously or sequentially to affect followers’ commitment.
Future research may also examine a sequential dual mediation, in
which SRF and affective/continuance commitment serve as two
sequential mediators, which further lead to a variety of individual
organizational outcomes. Furthermore, this study focused on indi-
vidual commitment; however, leaders affect teams and organiza-
tional culture. Future studies may want to consider leaders’ ability
to effect the collective sense of followers’ prevention and promo-
tion focus (Kark & van Dijk, 2007) and how this may affect collec-
tive attitudes, as well as the dyadic level of the dynamics of
leaders’ and followers’ self-regulatory fit (Kark & van Dijk, 2007),
and how these may effect followers’ commitment. Future studies
can also consider personality characteristics of followers, e.g.,
attachment styles or the big five personality traits, which can
attenuate the leaders’ influence on employees’ situational SRF,
and in turn influence their commitment to the organization. For
example, prior studies have shown that chronic regulatory focus
increases the salience of contextual information (Higgins, 1997;
Johnson et al., 2010). Based on their chronic SRF, employees may
be more attuned (precise, recall and encode) to different mes-
sages from their managers.
According to Higgins’ (2000) theory of regulatory fit, when
messages of the leader match an individual’s regulatory focus,
the value of the message is stronger (e.g., prevention-focused
individuals may be more attuned to monitoring leadership beha-
viours, leadership that highlights obligations and that uses nega-
tive feedback, in comparison to promotion-focused individuals).
This will interact with the leader’s ability to elicit higher levels of
situational SRF. Thus, employees’ chronic SRF, as well as other
personality characteristics, can moderate the ability of leaders’
behaviour to influence followers’ situational SRF, and in turn their
level of commitment. Last, we focused on general organizational
commitment and on commitment to safety and obtained similar
findings. It is of interest to explore other aspects of commitment,
e.g., commitment to creativity, since such a commitment may
have a similar or different dynamic. For example, it may be harder
to arouse continuance commitment to creativity, since creativity
may be more strongly linked to promotion and the affective
aspect of commitment than safety.
Implications for practice and conclusions
The current study suggests that managers who enact a transfor-
mational leadership style can enhance followers’ promotion moti-
vation and in turn can contribute to employees’ affective
commitment in general, whereas a transactional active style
arouses prevention and a continuance type of commitment. This
is important since managers can be trained to demonstrate trans-
formational and visionary behaviours, as well as be taught to tap
into employees’ aspirations, wishes and hopes – a promotion
focus (e.g., Antonakis, Fenley, & Liechti, 2011). These behaviours
will enable leaders to foster a stronger bond between the employ-
ees and the organization in the form of affective commitment. It
also suggests that eliciting a promotion focus through transforma-
tional behaviours improves employees’ commitment to a specific
target, work safety, which was previously found to be more related
to prevention focus (Wallace & Chen, 2006). Because safety is a
crucial aspect in many of today’s organizations, it is important for
managers to learn the ways in which they can effect employees’
motivation and commitment to safety. This suggests that man-
agers should adopt more transformational behaviours that lead to
promotion focus, even in work environments that require a special
attention to and emphasis on safety and error-free performance
(such as hospitals, construction companies or banks). The form of
affective commitment to safety and its relationship with promo-
tion focus indicate that being a highly safety-oriented employee
does not necessarily require a prevention focus, but rather promo-
tion focus can lead to a deeper and more emotional involvement
in safety.
Notes
1. Although Meyer and Allen’s (1997) model theoretically distinguished
normative commitment from the other forms of commitment, prior
studies have shown that normative commitment is non-distinguish-
able empirically from continuance and affective commitment. While
in some studies it loaded with continuance commitment, in others it
was found to overlap with affective commitment. For example, in a
meta-analysis, normative commitment substantially overlapped with
affective commitment (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005).
2. Normative commitment to safety reflects a feeling of moral obliga-
tion to maintaining safety in the workplace. For example, employees
with high normative commitment to safety behave in accordance
with safety rules and procedures, due to being socialized into high
importance of safety goals and values. However, due to the reasons
specified earlier, this is beyond the scope of this paper.
3. Contingent reward, that is a pure transaction between the leader and
the follower of a give and take, may result in a less definitive out-
come, possibly leading to both affective and continuance commit-
ment. This component has also been critiqued for being inseparable
from the transformational components (e.g., van Knippenberg &
Sitkin, 2013). Therefore, in line with previous studies’ results (Berson
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
& Avolio, 2004; Garman, Davis-Lenane, & Corrigan, 2003; Kark et al.,
2015; O’Shea, Foti, Hauenstein, & Bycio, 2009), we focus mostly on
the transactional components of management by exception (active
and passive).
4. All the study scales are well validated and widely used in the litera-
ture (e.g., Kark et al., 2003; Lockwood et al., 2002; Meyer et al., 2002;
van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). Since our model newly combines
the three leadership subscales together, we conducted an additional
omnibus multilevel CFA with a 7-factor model (i.e., transformational
leadership, transactional active leadership, transactional passive lea-
dership, promotion focus, prevention focus, affective organizational
commitment and continuance organizational commitment). Results
demonstrated at fit level of χ2(1203, N = 315) = 3433.26, p < .01,
CFI = .85, TLI = .84, RMSEA = .08. The recommended sample-size-to-
parameters ratio is 20:1 or a minimal acceptable ratio of 10:1
(Jackson, 2003). Study 1 questionnaire included 54 items with a
sample size of 315 participants. Thus, this may influence the good-
ness of fit of the final model. Moreover, we replicated our model in
Study 3 that had a lager sample size, and the results of an omnibus
multilevel CFA revealed an acceptable fit (χ2(1356,
N = 798) = 5669.42, p < .01, CFI = .91, TLI = .90, RMSEA = .06).
5. Data collected in Study 2 were part of broader data collection efforts.
Additional findings from this data set were published by Kark et al.
(2015). Specifically, the two scenarios (which are used as indepen-
dent variables) and situational SRFs (which are used as mediators)
were tested as antecedents of safety behaviours by Kark et al. (2015).
6. We conducted an additional omnibus CFA with a 4-factors model (χ2
(286, N = 107) = 495.04, p < .01, CFI = .87, TLI = .85, RMSEA = .08). A
1-factor model (i.e., promotion focus, prevention focus, affective
organizational commitment and continuance organizational commit-
ment items are loading on one factor, χ2(292, N = 107) = 1053.73,
p < .01, CFI = .52, TLI = .46, RMSEA = .16), and a 2-factors model
(promotion focus and affective organizational commitment items on
the one factor, and prevention focus and continuance organizational
commitment items on the second factor; χ2(291, N = 107) = 722.73,
p < .01, CFI = .69, TLI = .65, RMSEA = .13). Compering the difference
between the models demonstrated that the 4-factors model fits the
data significantly better than the 1-factor model (χ2(6) = 558.69,
p < .01), and better than the 2-factors model (χ2(5) = 227.69, p < .01).
7. Data collected in Study 3 were part of a broader data collection
effort. Additional findings from this data set were published by
Kark et al. (2015). Specifically, the three leadership styles of transfor-
mational, MBEA and MBEP (which were used as independent vari-
ables) and situational SRF (which were used as mediators) were
tested as antecedents of safety behaviours by Kark et al. (2015).
8. We conducted an additional omnibus multilevel CFA with a 7-factor
model (i.e., transformational leadership, transactional active leader-
ship, transactional passive leadership, promotion focus, prevention
focus, affective safety commitment and continuance safety commit-
ment). Results demonstrated acceptable fit level χ2(1356,
N = 798) = 5669.42, p < .01, CFI = .91, TLI = .90, RMSEA = .06.
9. Indeed, in Study 1, there was a positive correlation between the
contingent rewards scale and affective organizational commitment
(r = .30, p < .01), and no correlation between the transactional active
scale and affective commitment (r = .07, ns). The same pattern of
results was found in Study 3 (contingent rewards and affective
organizational commitment (r = . 30, p < .01) and transactional active
scale and affective commitment (r = .05, ns)).
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank Dennis Herhausen, Fadel Matta, and Dana Vashdi
for their generous help with advanced statistical analyses in the final
stages of the revisions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
15
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